Page 17 of The Pieces We've Lost

As I was walking my horse back to the trailer, I caught a glimpse of her—the girl from the bar who hadn’t left my mind since I saw her. She was sitting next to an older woman with red hair and the same bright-blue eyes, who I could only assume was a relative. She was deep in conversation with a radiant grin on her face. It was magnetizing, and I had to force myself to break my stare and continue walking.

This was my one chance to redeem myself. I guaranteed if I fucked this up, I would never see her again. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the fact I was only going to be in Houston for a little over a week. I hadn’t felt this instant attraction to someone since Sophie, and that was either a good thing or a sign of inevitable failure.

Focus on getting your horse back to the pen for the night. There are more important things than that girl. Remember your future.I tried to focus on rodeo and toss the memory of her face out of my mind, but everything kept going back to her.

Fuck it. Maybe if I just have a conversation with her, made up for the other night, I’ll be able to move on with my life.

It was decided. I would take Bullet back to the trailer, take care of everything that needed to be done for him, and then if I happened to see her again, I would talk to her. I would do whatever it took to just have a conversation with her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ellison

Realization hit me like a semitruck when I put two and two together. Of course the guy I ran into at the bar would be here and of course he was good at what he did. I just couldn’t get away from him.

It’s okay,I thought. The stadium was so large and filled with thousands of people, so the odds of me actually seeing him again, face to face, were extremely low.

I brought my attention back to the rodeo. Steer wrestling was next. This event was always stressful for us.

My hands started to get clammy, and the arena seemed to rise in temperature despite it being such a large space. Even though I had no ties to any of the cowboys here, steer wrestling always made me nervous.

The idea of steer wrestling was to start on the back of your horse and chase the steer, kind of like roping. Except the horse came up right next to the steer, allowing the rider to drop from the right side of his horse and reach for the steer’s horns. Once the cowboy had grabbed the steer’s horns, he dug his heels into the ground to slow the animal and enable the rider to turn the animal, lifting up on itsright horn and pushing down with his left hand. The clock stopped when the animal was on its side with all four legs pointing in the same direction. The goal was, of course, to get the fastest time.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our first cowboy comes from your hometown of Houston, Texas,” the announcer called out, and I stiffened.

It was all way too familiar, a film I’d seen a million times before. Except even though I thought I already knew the ending, the outcome was different every time.

The first steer wrestler successfully took down the animal in four-point-two seconds. Not a horrible time, but it wouldn’t win him any big bucks.

The announcer called the next steer wrestler’s name, a cowboy from Arizona. He started out great, his horse running alongside the steer, perfectly synced. But when it came time for him to ease down from his horse, he overshot the landing and went over top of the steer. Images of my dad’s accident flashed through my mind, and I realized I had squeezed my eyes shut without knowing. My breath caught in my throat and a lump started to form.

You’re not going to cry. It’s not the same, it’ll be fine.I reassured myself subconsciously, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to reopen my eyes for fear of what I would see.

When I finally stopped holding my breath and looked again, the steer was running down the arena, but the cowboy was okay. He ended up getting a no time instead. Everything was normal, spectators were chatting amongst each other and clapping and cheering for their favorite competitors, but I couldn’t ease the feeling of dread that rose in my stomach.

“I think I need some air,” I mumbled to my mother.

She gave me an absentminded nod and continued to watch the event.

I planned to walk around the arena a couple times, maybe step outside for a moment then go back to my seat. Anything that would take up enough time so I wouldn’t have to watch the rest of the steer wrestling. Otherwise my dinner might end up on someone’s back, and nobody wanted that.

I went out to the area that had the concessions and walked through the current of people trying to get their hot dogs and popcorn. Little kids pulled their parents toward the stables, desperate to get an up-close look at the horses, and then their faces turned sad when their parents ultimately told them no.

No one noticed me as I walked through the crowd without my mother, as if I were a ghost. I was just one of them, another face in the crowd, and that was comforting to me. I didn’t want attention brought to me. I would’ve rather coasted through life than been in the public eye all the time.

Bullet did not want to be at the trailer. He didn’t want to be tied up, so he resorted to being a major pain in my ass. He kept moving parallel to the trailer so I couldn’t get around him and, to make matters worse, he kept pawing at the wheel well. He was restless and wasn’t ready to be done. He wanted to keep going, to run.

“Knock that shit off,” I scolded him, trying to get this done as quickly as possible. I managed to get an arm between him and the trailer so I could push him away from it. He grunted in protest but eventually moved.Asshole.

“Help me out here, buddy. You’re supposed to be my wingman, not an obstacle,” I muttered at the horse.

If horses could roll their eyes, that’s what Bullet did.

A few minutes later, I had all of the equipment removed and back in the trailer. I took Bullet to one of the corrals and told him I would deal with him later. I had a girl to find.

It wouldn’t be that hard to find her, right? Right?

Fuck, Colter, you are in over your head. What are you doing, man?I was starting to think I was going delusional. But then I turned the corner and there she was.

---